This disclosure relates in general to copier/printers, and more particularly, to cleaning residual toner from an external heater roll and system for cleaning and rejuvenating an external surface of a fusing member in a toner image producing machine.
In a typical electrophotographic printing process, a photoreceptor or photoconductive member is charged to a uniform potential to sensitize the surface thereof. The charged portion of the photoconductive member is exposed to a light image of an original document being reproduced. Exposure of the charged photoconductive member selectively dissipates the charges thereon in the irradiated areas. This process records an electrostatic latent image on the photoconductive member corresponding to the informational areas contained within the original document. After the electrostatic latent image is recorded on the photoconductive member, the latent image is developed by bringing a developer material into contact therewith. Generally, the developer material comprises toner particles adhering triboelectrically to carrier granules. Toner particles attracted from the carrier granules to the latent image form a toner powder image on the photoconductive member. The toner powder image is then transferred from the photoconductive member to a copy sheet. Heating of the toner particles permanently affixes the powder image to the copy sheet. After each transfer process, the toner remaining on the photoconductor is cleaned by a cleaning device.
In order to fix permanently or fuse the toner material onto a substrate or support member such as plain paper by heat, it is necessary to elevate the temperature of the toner material to a point at which constituents of the toner material coalesce and become tacky. This action causes the toner to flow to some extent onto the fibers and/or into the pores of the support member or otherwise upon the surface thereof. Thereafter, as the toner material cools, solidification of the toner material occurs causing the toner material to be bonded firmly to the support member.
Most current fusing systems include a system for automatically cleaning the fuser roll and/or supplying the fuser roll with a lubricant or release agent. For example, the surface of the fuser roll may be cleaned and/or lubricated by means of a web that is pressed against the surface of the fuser roll at a location generally away from the nip formed by the pressure and fuser rolls. The webs of known systems provide either a textured surface or a tacky or sticky surface for removing adhered toner particles from the fuser roll. The web may also provide amounts of lubricant or release agent to the fuser roll. However, web cleaning techniques are not capable of driving contamination out of the valleys of the rough surface. This material stays bonded to the support member leading to a reduction in the functionality of the surface.
For the reasons stated above, and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification there is need in the art for systems, apparatus, and/or methods that cleans and remove bonded material from a surface.